Tag: Technology

December 24, 2022

Oven Reminders with Node Red & ESPHome

Use of Node Red and Javascript to monitor power to my oven and give regular announcements that is is still running. It also can log to a csv file and do calculations based on total power used and the cost of that power, with peak/offpeak rates taken into account.

Categories Home Automation Comments: 0

July 8, 2022

WB3S replacement for Home Automation devices

More and more home automation devices from China are coming with no ESP8266 module, especially the TUYA based ones. Some are coming with a WB3S (which is different to the TYWB3S), but this can easily be removed and replaced with a cheap ESP12F (or similar) module.

Categories Electronics/Home Automation Comments: 2

May 27, 2022

Xiaomi BLE LCD Thermometers in Home Assistant

Using esphome in an ESP32 dev board to pull the values of some cheap Xiaomi LCD temp sensors (with BLE) and integrate them into home assistant.

Categories Home Automation Comments: 0

August 30, 2021

Tracking Pet Feeding with Home Automation

A method to track whether the cat and dog have been fed in a busy household.

Categories Home Automation Comments: 0

May 27, 2021

Kogan Smart Plug: No Esp8266? (Tuya WB2S)

It is getting more and more common to get smart devices that have chips other than ESP8266 in them, and these chips are usually not flashable with the likes of Tasmota, espHome etc. This Kogan power monitor had an Tuya WB3S

Categories Electronics/Home Automation Comments: 0

April 17, 2021

LED Strip Ambient Up-lighting

Some notes re how I have used LEDs for decorative up-lighting in between ceiling beams, and controlled with Tasmota and Node Red.

Categories Home Automation/Lighting Comments: 0

April 12, 2021

Internet Speed test to InfluxDB & MQTT with Docker

Use of the Ookla speedtest cli to test the internet connection regularly, and push the results to influx db & MQTT.

Categories Home Automation/IT & Networking Comments: 0

August 13, 2020

Smartphone screen protector UV cured

I have had various phone screen protectors over the years, floppy and solid and preferred the solid glass cover I had on on my Note 8 for over a year I paid NZ$30+ for the last one including install by someone at a ‘phone shop’ but really it wasn’t a nice install, and I re-seated it not long to try…

Categories Mobile Phones & Android Comment: 1

July 21, 2020

Whole House 3 Phase Power with PZEM-004T

A robust, accurate, low cost and safe whole house electricity monitoring setup, using PZEM-004T modules. These use current transformers (CTs), and send data as TTL Modbus-RTU. Recently Tasmota has added support for up to 3 of these directly (on the same data channel) so there are fewer hoops to jump though to get them working (previously my testing involved sending serial commands)

Categories Home Automation

December 5, 2019

Over Stair TV Cabinet + Hall Storage

Because I hate unused space… I decided to plan a storage unit for above where our stairs go from our lounge to the lower level. There is decent ceiling height here, and the back of the area is accessible from the hallway. We thought of the concept when we were renovating the hall about 12 months previous, and so cut…

Categories DIY Projects/Entertainment/Home Renovations Comments: 0

July 27, 2019

Used EV Payback, Should I buy one? (Part 1, Estimates)

How much do you save buying a used EV, and is it worth it? How long is the payback? This is the story of my original conservative payback estimates for buying a Nissan Leaf, but plot twist… the actuals are much, much better.

Categories Electric Vehicles/Opinion

April 12, 2019

Podcasts I Listen To

Ok, I do like to listen to the occasional podcast, and there are a bunch that I like to listen to regularly. Being in traffic for an hour or more most day gives me plenty of opportunity to catch up on various technology news, history and some light hearted humour. This list is occasionally updated when I fine more content,…

Categories Education/Entertainment/Lists/Opinion/Social Media/Technology Comments: 0

June 24, 2018

How to Stop Your Caravan From Disappearing

Caravan thefts in New Zealand have become a lot more common in the past few years, and every day or so you hear about another one going missing. Caravans are pretty easy to steal by themselves, as they are light weight, usually easily accessible on a driveway… and they sit home alone when people go to work. An often touted…

Categories Retro Caravans/Security Comments: 0

May 19, 2018

Tips: Get Your Cabling in Tricky Places

Do you have an existing house or structure and trying to get a cable into a tricky place?  Here are a few tips from methods I have used over the years. Conduit Sucker There is nothing more annoying than finding a broken cable in a conduit or pipe and having nothing to pull the replacement wire though.  it is especially…

Categories Home Renovations/Projects/Technology Comments: 0

November 6, 2017

Complete Backup and Restore of an Android Device

If you are upgrading an Android device and want to cover everything (and pedantically save the entire history/setup of your phone), for example installing a new ROM in your phone, upgrading the phone or going from an old phone to a new one, here are some notes I have put together about the process I use. What do you want…

Categories Mobile Phones & Android Comments: 0

January 15, 2017

1965 Zephyr Deluxe Caravan Restoration

These are the before and after photos of our 1965 15″ Zephyr Deluxe Caravan. It was apparently stored in a shed for 20 years so apart from some general decay, some borer and a bunch of broken and missing stuff, the layout and fittings were mostly original. We had it mostly as we got it for a couple of years…

Categories DIY Projects/Projects/Retro Caravans Comments: 0

April 27, 2016

9 Simple Tips for Smart Phone Photography

I have some good camera gear, and many of my favourite photos are ones that I have taken on SLR, with carefully chosen aperture, speed and composition. But there are some that still really like that I have taken on my old pocket Casio 2 Megapixel camera, and still quite a number I’ve take on my phones over the years….

Categories Mobile Phones & Android/Photography/Social Media Comments: 0

April 19, 2016

Upgrading a 5 Year Old Samsung Galaxy S2 to Android M

I needed a phone for my son as he had been given an older ZTE V795 phone running Android Gingerbread. The ridiculous thing about this is that besides the fact there is really no way to easily upgrade or change out the ROM on this phone… you can’t even update the current setup as any ‘play store’ updates fail even…

Categories Mobile Phones & Android/Projects Comments: 9

February 17, 2016

My Photobooth Project…

I needed a photobooth for my wedding (this was one of my few assigned wedding tasks!). You know, one of those ‘take a few photos of guests, and print them’ sort of thing, like the early film ones . Early on, I built up a list of things I really wanted to achieve with it, as there are many options…

Categories Entertainment/Photography/Projects/Technology Comments: 0

January 27, 2016

How I manage and share 1000s of digital photographs

People often ask me for the best way to store their thousands of photos, and I’ve tried a bunch of ways in the past. I take masses of photos (SLRs, Action Cams, Pocket Cams and phones), and running my own commercial (colocated) server has allowed me to use applications such as Gallery, Piwigo and other server apps to store, manage and display…

Categories DIY Projects/Photography/Projects/Technology Comments: 0

March 3, 2015

Tips to create easy Tag Cloud Artwork

You’ve seen them… those pictures made up of lots of words. You can create these pretty easily at Tagxedo, but it is handy to have a few tips as to how to get the best out of it. They make great family presents, and you can use all the words that are personal & meaningful to the person you are…

Categories Education/Entertainment/Projects/Technology Comments: 0

July 3, 2014

Dashcams… and the $80 Mobius

The proliferation of small sports cameras, ‘dash’ cams and security cameras has meant that Youtube abounds with footage of incidents, near misses, ‘oh %$#@’ moments, and just generally people and drivers doing stupid things. Camera technology has improved markedly in the past couple of years, with prices coming down, quality and resolution improving and the merging of use with model…

Categories CCTV/Opinion/Technology/Vehicles Comments: 0

February 26, 2014

Samsung Galaxy S5 Release, Impressive?

I see the S5 has just been announced by Samsung finally at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona & and it will be available in NZ on April 11.  I have been looking over some of the features after having an S4, Note 1 & 2, and various other Android phones. There are some incremental improvements and a few new…

Categories Mobile Phones & Android/Opinion Comments: 0

February 19, 2014

Linked-in Collec…Connecting

Connecting to people on social media has its place, and I have been using a number of social platforms over recent times for rapid viewing of up-to-the-second information and keeping in touch with more people that it would otherwise humanly be possible. Facebook over the past few years has improved their privacy settings (enough that I will actually use it…

Categories Opinion/Social Media/Technology Comments: 0

January 7, 2014

iPad and iPhone tips

Just a repost from a technology site.  I guess if you have an iPad these are useful things to know.  I think they have hyped it up a bit… they aren’t exactly ‘mind-blowing’!  Interesting and mostly helpful all the same.

Categories Mobile Phones & Android Comments: 0

November 28, 2013

Bitcoin…. it’s not magic

Bitcoin has been mentioned in the mainstream media recently as a ‘new form of electronic money’.  It sounds impressive, but the way it works as a system of ‘money’ is actually not that impressive and easy to explain if you take the ‘tech’ side away.  

Categories Technology Comments: 0

November 20, 2013

Living with Windows 8 Mobile

I’ve had the (dis)-pleasure of being forced into a new mobile for ‘real-job’, and after a bunch of to-ing and fro-ing with our IT management, Windows 8 has become the mobile operating system of choice. We are moving from a Blackberry environment, but I was fortunate enough to be able to run my own Android phone until recently.  As a…

Categories Mobile Phones & Android Comments: 0

November 14, 2013

Zoomy taxi app is a game changer

I don’t often have a need to get a taxi these days as I am less out and about than I used to be, but when I needed to drop my Holden in for a service, I jumped at the chance to call a taxi via the new Zoomy app taxi service.

Categories Technology Comments: 0

November 14, 2013

Should I buy a Chromebook for my child’s schoolwork?

This question gets asked of me a lot in the local area where I live. Most of the local schools ‘require’ some form of personal computing device for each child now (beyond about the age of 10+) and Chromebooks are an often recommended solution with the alternative being the iPad or a full laptop. I’m sometimes not even sure if…

Categories Education/Technology Comments: 0